Drug Charges

GROVELAND – Lake County sheriff's detectives arrested a convicted felon at his home – a travel trailer – after fielding several complaints that he was dealing drugs from his rolling residence. Lee Bogart, 46, who was on drug-offender probation for possession of methamphetamine, was taken into custody after a search of the travel trailer which was located near Sloan's Ridge Road near Groveland. Accompanied by state probation officers, deputies found a handgun, ammunition and drug paraphernalia, which they identified as meth pipes and torches, digital scales and plastic baggies for drug packaging.

The accused hit-and-run driver in last month's crash at Goldenrod Road KinderCare appeared before a judge Tuesday, for the first time since prosecutors in the case charged him with several drug offenses, including trafficking. Robert Corchado, 28, remained quiet through his appearance, during which a judge tallied up his bail on the new counts: $301,000. To bond out of jail, Corchado will need not only the cash, but also evidence of where he got it. In an order Monday, Circuit Judge Greg Tynan placed a hold on Corchado, forcing him to prove that any money he uses to post bail isn't the product of criminal activity.

The manager of a home for the elderly and ill was arrested after she was found with prescription drugs that belonged to former residents, Apopka police said Friday. Shanta Naraine, was arrested Feb. 6 on seven counts of possession of a controlled substance. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration told officers they came to Apopka Assisted Living Facility to investigate complaints about the quality of care at the home, a police report states. The facility operates out of Naraine's five-bedroom single-family house on Nightingale Street.

Questions lingered after the crash at Goldenrod Road KinderCare: How did a rear-end crash propel a Toyota Solara through the day care's wall? And why did the driver suspected of hitting that car flee? A Florida Highway Patrol report on the crash filed in Orange County Circuit court Monday begins to answer those questions, as prosecutors also filed new charges against the hit-and-run suspect, Robert Corchado. The report revealed the account the Solara's driver, Albert Campbell, gave of the crash.

A Leesburg man is facing multiple drug charges after his Tuesday arrest in Marion County, according to The Ocala Star-Banner. The U.S. Marshals Service Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force and the Marion County Sheriff's Office found Robert Morris Jones, 35, at a Belleview home. Read more at Ocala.com .

A lengthy investigation ended in Melbourne with the arrests of four people on drug charges, according to a Florida Today report. The Melbourne Police Department had been watching the house on Eau Gallie Boulevard for three months after complaints of heavy traffic and drug activity. Police found more than three ounces of marijuana, a Xanax pill, four handguns and $641 inside the home. Read more here .

Lake County deputies picked up more than 25 suspects on outstanding arrest warrants stemming from drug-related offenses in a county-wide warrants sweep Thursday, the Lake County Sheriff's Office said. The Sheriff's Office Special Investigations Unit — along with officers from the Clermont, Tavares, Eustis and Mount Dora police departments — participated. The Sheriff's Office Warrants Squad and Street Crimes Unit along with the U.S. Marshal's Service Fugitive Task Force also took part in the search for some 40 offenders with active Lake County warrants.

KISSIMMEE – A two-month investigation of drug sales along West U.S. Highway 192 in Osceola County's tourist corridor ended Tuesday with 17 arrests, according to the sheriff's office. Sheriff's deputies served one search warrant and numerous arrest warrants. They also seized 130 grams of cocaine, 10 grams of marijuana, 7 grams of controlled substances and numerous items of drug paraphernalia, according to a sheriff's office statement.

Law enforcement officials in Marion County say they arrested another 24 people on drug-related charges following a recent drug sweep in the county. On Friday, agents from the Multi-Agency Drug Enforcement and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area teams broke up two methamphetamine labs and arrested six people. Charges included meth trafficking, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. An undercover operation in southeast Marion conducted a "buy bust" on Saturday, accounting for 18 arrests, the Marion County Sheriff's Office said.

Dale Wayne Smith Sr., the 64-year-old father of the suspect in the disappearance of missing mother Michelle Parker, was arrested on drug charges on Tuesday, records show. The elder Smith faces charges of sale or manufacture of a controlled substance, possession of cannabis less than 20 grams and possession of drug paraphernalia. Circumstances of the arrest were not immediately available. The sale or manufacture charge is a third-degree felony, and the other two charges are first-degree misdemeanors.

John Michael DeJesus' account was dramatic: Three armed men stormed his home, raided his safe and shot his girlfriend in her bed as her daughter slept beside her, before fleeing into the night. However, detectives soon began to doubt every element of his story, a court document shows. On Friday, the Orange County Sheriff's Office issued a statement naming DeJesus "the only suspect" in the death of his girlfriend, 22-year-old Yoliz Marie DeJesus Borrero. An arrest affidavit filed in circuit court shows what led detectives to suspect DeJesus, who deputies say is a confessed drug dealer and member of the Latin Kings gang.

The boyfriend of a young mother gunned down in a home invasion Wednesday in Orange County told detectives his drug dealing may have been the reason for the break-in, an affidavit states. Meanwhile, records show the boyfriend, 27-year-old John Michael DeJesus, is a sex offender who served prison time for picking up a 13-year-old girl at her bus stop and abusing her in 2005. Yoliz Marie DeJesus Borrero, 22, was fatally shot about 4:20 a.m. after three attackers kicked their way into her home on Millrace Court in the Bridge Creek subdivision, the Sheriff's Office said.

Authorities arrested a 30-year-old man Wednesday after they searched his home as part of an ongoing investigation into the KinderCare crash that killed a 4-year-old girl and injured several others on April 9. The home — located in the 5200 block of N. Orange Avenue in Winter Park — was the same place Robert Corchado ditched the Dodge Durango he was driving during the KinderCare crash, authorities said. Florida Highway Patrol troopers believe Corchado — in jail charged with leaving an accident causing death — is responsible for the crash.

No one was injured when a heroin suspect and an Orange County deputy exchanged gunfire during a undercover heroin sting in the parking lot of a Lowe's Home Improvement store on Tuesday, the Sheriff's Office said. According to sheriff's spokeswoman Jane Watrel, the gunfire erupted as deputies moved in to make an arrest during a drug transaction about 11 a.m. outside the Lowe's on Lake Underhill Road in east Orange County. The suspect, later identified as 41-year-old Shontell McCauley, opened fire at one of the approaching deputies, Watrel said.

An Osceola County deputy sheriff was arrested Thursday after investigators said he offered to help a suspect with her case in exchange for a picture of her private parts, Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show. Marc Jordanides, 33, was booked into the Osceola County Jail on a charge of bribery by a public servant and released on $10,000 bail. Jordanides met the then-20-year-old woman when he answered a call reporting that jewelry had been stolen from her home near Kissimmee the night of Dec, 22, 2011, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report.

In their search for illegal firearms, Orlando police follow a predictable script: a minor late-night traffic stop, the smell of pot and the confiscation of another "crime gun. " Week after week, police seize handguns across the city, beginning around midnight, by stopping cars with burned out tag lights, seat-belt violations and rolling stops at intersections, records show. The latest was at 3 a.m. today. William Scott wasn't wearing his seat belt when he pulled his car alongside an Orlando Police Department pickup for a red light at the corner of Long Street and South Rio Grande Avenue, according to his arrest report.

PALATKA, Fla. (AP) — The father of a missing Putnam County girl Haleigh Cummings is negotiating a plea deal for a 15-year sentence on drug-trafficking charges in exchange for testimony against his ex-wife and her brother. Attorney Terry Shoemaker said today at a pretrial hearing that his client Ronald Cummings hopes to have the deal before trial begins July 19. Shoemaker said surveillance evidence of five undercover drug deals with Cummings was a significant factor. He did not immediately return a phone message or an e-mail from The Associated Press.

A 34-year-old Clermont man was among those arrested in a Polk County Sheriff's Office's investigation - dubbed Operation Hoodoo Voodoo - into an alleged methamphetamine pipeline from Mexico to Central Florida. Joseph Angelo Rinaldi was arrested in Osceola County and charged with conspiracy to traffic meth over 28 grams and unlawful use of two-way communication. Rinaldi has been arrested on drug charges several times including twice in Osceola for trafficking in meth over 14 grams, records show.

SANFORD - For a time it seemed Rachel Fryer's story was one of redemption. She was a mother who gave up drugs and street fighting - a chaotic life that sent her to jail nearly a dozen times - and seemed to have tamed an inner rage. She had to if she was going to convince social workers to give back four of her children. But once she got them back in November, she could not control her youngest, 2-year-old Tariji Gordon. The toddler would not sit down when told, would fight and scratch and take off soiled diapers, leaving them in the kitchen, Fryer complained.